Despite having successful sourced 100 per cent of its stocks from voluntary blood donation for four years running, the blood bank at the Coimbatore Medical College Hospital (CMCH) faces several problems with some donors who lack knowledge of the procedures.
Explaining the problem, A. Mangayarkarasi, Head, Department of CMCH Blood Bank, says there are several procedures mandated by the Government that have to be followed before taking blood from a donor. Following them is bound to take time and many volunteers grew restless.
Volunteers who are rejected for reasons ranging from lack of adequate sleep to intake of antibiotics sometimes throw a tantrum.
Some volunteers come with the intent of donating blood to specific patients at the CMCH. Most of such donors are, however, unaware of the patient details such as which of the four component of a blood is required and for what purpose.
The blood bank has to get them from the ward concerned before taking the blood from a donor. This process consumes time and results in volunteer getting agitated.
To tackle these problems, she says workshops are going to be held among the interest groups and volunteers to create awareness on the procedures.
The CMCH Blood Bank has recently joined the National Haemo-Vigilance Committee, set up under the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. Under this, it has to report online any post-transfusion complication such as the donor developing fits.
The purpose was to monitor the process and to investigate their causes and outcomes, and prevent recurrence, she adds.
While summer holidays fuel joy for the students, they give headaches for the blood banks as colleges, which are the primary source, closes down.
Dr. Mangayarkarasi says they are drawing up contingency plans to strengthen blood donation in summer by tapping non-governmental organisations and factories. This decline, she says, is not confined to CMCH alone and was faced by all blood banks.
The Government blood banks must take more efforts to expedite the blood donation process in the interest of the volunteer donators, says D. Ragul, a second year college student who formed an organisation — Ultra Social Service, a registered society, three years ago and operates a network of voluntary blood donors such as students and professionals.
The organisation, he says, liaises with all blood banks in the city but gave priority to the Government blood banks as many needy people benefited from them.
Donors sent to the Government blood banks are being made to wait for a quite some time which discourages them a lot.
